Thank you for visiting our forum. As a guest, you have limited access to view some discussion and articles. By joining our free community, you will be able to view all discussions and articles, post your own topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload photos, participate in Pick'Em contests and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today!!

I totally agree. Add all of that with a new defensive scheme, against that offense we saw, and it was bound to be a long day. This team has been thru a lot of adversity in the past 5 years. We aren't gonna just fold (unlike so many on here seem to believe). It took me two days to kind of accept that beating we took lol. Now I'm already prepping the smoker for the next set of ribs. I'm looking forward to Saturday. Let's go Gamecocks. I'm glad some fellow cocky-talkers on this board are still keeping it real

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I said this in other threads and will state it again, we didn't get beat by scheme or coaching, the players just didn't execute their assignments. That was evident throughout the game, while watching it.

We'll be ok though and I think the kids will chalk this up to experience, kinda like welcome to the big leagues.

I said this in other threads and will state it again, we didn't get beat by scheme or coaching, the players just didn't execute their assignments. That was evident throughout the game, while watching it.

We'll be ok though and I think the kids will chalk this up to experience, kinda like welcome to the big leagues.

I didn't see it this way last Thursday, but I do now. After watching the game again, I could see that our D was just a step behind the whole time.

I said this in other threads and will state it again, we didn't get beat by scheme or coaching, the players just didn't execute their assignments. That was evident throughout the game, while watching it.

We'll be ok though and I think the kids will chalk this up to experience, kinda like welcome to the big leagues.

Ouch talk about trial by fire but you could be right and I hope you sure are.

I know a lot of you are saying that the defenders were playing 10 yards off the ball, but with the field spread out that far and the speed and size of our receivers, what is better to give up, a 10 yard hitch, curl, slant, or a huge bomb? Playing man tight is going to leave literally no room for error at all. That means no over the top safety help and that would not have been a very good option either. That is one of the big benefits about spreading the field like we do. It offers a no win situation. Come press if you want, but is a 6'0" guy that weighs 190 lbs going to be able to knock a 6'5" monster off his route enough at the line to play that tight? You better have a VERY solid pass rush with your front 7 to do it, because you have 4-5 receivers that you are going to need to account for and quick. Lay back ten yards and we pick you apart.
OBC tried the 10 yard approach and if you notice it really took a big play down the filed game away. Last year a lot of teams tried the press look and they would get torched long for it. Sumlin and Spav are going to take what you give them. You guys just went with the other approach.

This system is stoppable.
If you play back you will need to be able to stop the run with your front 7 and hope for a lot of user error on our end.
OR
If you play tight, you need a solid pass rush without blitzing and big DBs to force the receivers off their routes when they jam at the line and not let them get off quick.

__________________
Gig 'Em - you can eat the apple, but don't F with the Corps!

18 - thanks very much for sharing that! Also thanks to others who re-watched the game and gave comments.

I'm sure the devil is in the details in those 3rd and longs and maybe in the end our defense just isn't going to be very good this year, but for right now I'm feeling better knowing our defense actually did have themselves in position to stop several drives. I had not realized our defense actually had TAMU in so many 3rd down situations, much less so many 3rd and longs.....it felt like TAMU was getting a 1st down on every play.

Looking at that list of 3rd downs, I'm assuming that is in chronological order. If we could have gotten stops on some of those early 3rd and longs the game would not have gotten out of hand so quickly and as we all know momentum is everything.

One thing is sure - we can only get better from that game because on the surface the entire performance was rather sheeeity.

Sounds like 3rd and long Charlie Strong defense. lol but wow that really puts the game in perspective. If we were to stop them on 50% of those that we didn't we could be talking about a completely different game.

I didn't see any route recognition by our secondary, they just kind of ran to a predetermined spot and let the WRs run wherever. They looked like they hadn't seen any film on Tamu.

Have to give the A&M QB credit, he had a whale of a game. I did notice the few times we got pressure, he threw incomplete. It was clear he had one receiver picked out every snap and knew exactly where he was going and got rid of it quickly and we did very little to disrupt him or the WR routes.

Our D-line wasn't as bad as I thought. We didn't get much pressure but they didn't exactly have any time either. That was a good OL they were facing and the ball was gone in about 3 seconds. I'd give them a C- but not an F like I thought.

Blitzing a Linebacker from 8 yards off the line of scrimmage at the snap was a waste of time. The ball was gone by the time he hit line and left a void in coverage. We continued to do it with very little success.

We have talent on defense with good speed/athleticism and they made more plays than I originally thought. But they were thinking too much and not reacting to the ball which I think is experience related. They'll get better.

I didn't see any route recognition by our secondary, they just kind of ran to a predetermined spot and let the WRs run wherever. They looked like they hadn't seen any film on Tamu.

Have to give the A&M QB credit, he had a whale of a game. I did notice the few times we got pressure, he threw incomplete. It was clear he had one receiver picked out every snap and knew exactly where he was going and got rid of it quickly and we did very little to disrupt him or the WR routes.

Our D-line wasn't as bad as I thought. We didn't get much pressure but they didn't exactly have any time either. That was a good OL they were facing and the ball was gone in about 3 seconds. I'd give them a C- but not an F like I thought.

Blitzing a Linebacker from 8 yards off the line of scrimmage at the snap was a waste of time. The ball was gone by the time he hit line and left a void in coverage. We continued to do it with very little success.

We have talent on defense with good speed/athleticism and they made more plays than I originally thought. But they were thinking too much and not reacting to the ball which I think is experience related. They'll get better.

I didn't see any route recognition by our secondary, they just kind of ran to a predetermined spot and let the WRs run wherever. They looked like they hadn't seen any film on Tamu.

Have to give the A&M QB credit, he had a whale of a game. I did notice the few times we got pressure, he threw incomplete. It was clear he had one receiver picked out every snap and knew exactly where he was going and got rid of it quickly and we did very little to disrupt him or the WR routes.

Our D-line wasn't as bad as I thought. We didn't get much pressure but they didn't exactly have any time either. That was a good OL they were facing and the ball was gone in about 3 seconds. I'd give them a C- but not an F like I thought.

Blitzing a Linebacker from 8 yards off the line of scrimmage at the snap was a waste of time. The ball was gone by the time he hit line and left a void in coverage. We continued to do it with very little success.

We have talent on defense with good speed/athleticism and they made more plays than I originally thought. But they were thinking too much and not reacting to the ball which I think is experience related. They'll get better.

I think more people will feel this way after they view the game again.

As a painful as it was I went back and watched the game again. On quite a few of those 3rd downs we had men in position to make the stop who didn't get the job done due to poor execution, fundamentals, and I would dare to say in many cases enthusiasm.

We had a lot of guys trotting around out there. When a defense is clicking you hear the phrase "flying to the ball" and there are defenders coming out of nowhere to get in on the play.

We had the players there to make the stops and we didn't get it done. If we had stopped some of those thirds we could have had a whole different ballgame.

With poor fundamentals and lack of intensity we got we got and we deserved it.

It's up to the coaches and the players to respond to this. If they accept the wake up call that nobody is going to hand you a win in the SEC just for showing up and they start playing up to their potential, the deficits they showed last Thursday are correctable with hard work and dedication.

Yeah, I pained myself with re-watching this mess as well. What stood out to me was the number of wide open receivers A&M had on almost every play. Hats off to Hill for having a great night, but good grief, we didn't make him make many reads. Everything was open, that lays a large question mark on coaching for me.

Even with only minimal pressure, nobody seemed to narrow the passing lanes. No tipped or swatted passes. Our taller DE's and DT's need to develop some ability to watch for a chance to cut the lane down or tip a ball even if they can't get to the QB. The linebackers can narrow the lanes also, but there didn't seem to be much "to the ball" action until the passes were caught.

This is nothing new to our offense, so I wouldn't lose any faith in your defense or play shoulda, woulda, coulda with your coaches' decisions. Look at our 2012and 2013 stats on 3rd down conversions. We were incredibly efficient at converting third downs. I don't know where to find the stats on it, but I know in 2012 we were just as dangerous if not more on third and long than third and short. 2013 was not as good, but we had an OC focused on the long ball all the time and moved away from our bread and butter short and intermediate throws to receivers in space. We've moved back to that and closer to a version our 2012 offense.

IMO, your guys did ok, it's just that this offense is really hard to defend, especially when you have elite athletes in it. When we played Leach's Air Raid at Tech, we would have more trouble with it than any other. No matter what we did, third and long was always like second and short. I can't tell you how painful it was to watch them convert third and nines or third and sevens repeatedly year in and year out. I don't think we ever really had an answer for it.

like i said in another thread we were simply outclassed in the first half. we only got them into two 3rd and long situations. one was a scramble that should have been stopped, the other was a draw that nearly picked up the 3rd and 16, but we held.

the 2nd half we got a&m into many more, but between the calls/personnel/execution they converted at a high rate. the two plays in the 2nd half that were glaring was the 3rd and 13 draw conversion and the 3rd and 9 crossing route where 5 people were between the receiver and the first down marker and he converted.

they were up 17 in both instances, they converted then scored a td. thats not to say we get the stop that we get the ball back and make it a game, but both plays were absolute killers.